It Ends Tonight
by Stephane Richer
Summary: i don't want to need at all


It Ends Tonight

Disclaimer: I own none of: the _Ouran High School Host Club_ manga by Bisco Hatori, the anime of the same name, the song "It Ends Tonight" by the All American Rejects.

* * *

She lies in his arms, looking soft and vulnerable (he planned the lighting that way, bulbs and angles and everything) and almost distorted as her appearance deviates from her usual hard, sharp glances and pointed angles all over. It's odd, but it fits. He'd rather make believe she's something else for this moment in time, and he imagines it makes it easier on her, as well. Or maybe it makes it harder. It's never a surprise either way with her, really. He doesn't want to make it harder for her, because that will just make it harder for him, and...

Oh, who is he kidding? Any way he could possibly slice this would still be painful. A knife through his side. No, not a knife. A sabre. Starting at his belly and then ripping slowly through his intestines, working up to the stomach and the heart and the throat and the brain and continuing until he's split in half. And even then, even then it's still not enough to describe the pain inside of him. But he has never been one for melodrama.

Her blue eyes flutter as she takes a drag on a cigarette, passes it to him. It's one of those awful, expensive French ones. And it tastes like her, oddly comforting (her? comforting? _her?_) as it is unsuitable. For him, for the situation, for everything. And all these feelings rush up into his head (did she add something other than nicotine to this one?) and he can't move or breathe or think for a second. And then, as quickly as it vanished, cognition returns. He remembers who he is. He is Kyoya Ohtori, heir to the family's iron throne. Gifted, ambitious, youngest. A hard businessman, but smooth and charming when he can be, when he should be, when he has to be. A snake in a suit, an asp, a boa, a python. Not a rattler. There's no loud warning. He is Kyoya Ohtori, all this, and engaged to one of the most beautiful, charming, witty, rich, self-absorbed, boring, disgusting, negative women in the world.

This woman does not lie next to him, and he cannot care less where she is at that moment. The next morning, she will dress in white and stand next to him in front of friends, relations, and allies, and she will smile coquettishly at him and he will lie as he does every day and complete the deal. He resents her, tolerates her (barely), and when she kisses him he imagines another's face.

It's an illusion he can't keep up. His fiance's kisses are wet and slobbery and sloppy, the way a dog's would be; Eclair's are not. They are deep and wanting and careful, measured and precisely exacting. His lips fit on hers like a door in a frame, almost magically. And that is why, that is exactly why they must finish this once and for all now. Love or loathing, sickness or health, he must devote himself to his wife completely. Even the snake has some sort of moral code, although some see him as having done far worse than cheating on his wife. Nevertheless, this is where he must draw the line.

This is where he gets up. He places his palms on the side of the white 500-thread-count sheets, slowly lifting himself up, blankets tumbling from his body and onto the bed. She knows this is the last time, too. Her eyes soften, and he can't help but turn away. Slowly, still, even though he hates drawing things out, he walks over to his clothes, neatly folded on the chair, and begins to dress himself. The steady rhythm envelops him closely and he almost shuts her out of his mind for a moment, until, as he's methodically fastening the buttons on his vest, her arms wrap around his chest from behind. He doesn't know whether to kiss her or push her away so he just leans into her. She will not cry; she refuses to cry. She hasn't since Tamaki. She's silently shaking, but her eyes are dry. He's taken what's left of her heart and pulverized it in a food processor. His own, too, but why should he need that?

He closes his eyes, breathes in her scent, memorizes the feel of the contours of her body on his, the angles that clash and conform at the same time. He has money; why hasn't he used it to make time stop? Her grip gradually and reluctantly loosens. His eyelids open up slightly. The curtain is slightly open, and rays of early tomato-red sun are streaming in. It's already too late; it's already past time to leave. And yet he stays. A caress on her hand, when he just wants to hold her and sob on the bed, she touches him on the forearm and ohhh god he's almost going to give it all up.

And she sees it in his eyes, reads him so clearly. It's like he's a basic road sign and she's a seasoned driver; she doesn't even have to look closely to figure it out. It is her who shoves him out of the door, throws his coat after him. It is her who slams it shut forcefully, who hides away. He leaves the hotel, resigned to what may come. Words, many words, sentences, remain unspoken between them. Perhaps, he muses, it's better that way. What is spoken becomes tangible, hard, unable to be taken away.


End file.
